The Hottie Stop interviews social media celeb Antje Utgaard!

"Awesome" Antje Utgaard is part of a new breed of celebrities making a name for themselves on social media, posting either gorgeous pictures or short comedy clips and making a killing in the process. A quick look at Antje's stats: 753,000 followers on Instagram; 147,000 likes on Facebook; 61,300 followers on Twitter; 3,997,000 Vine loops. And she's only been doing this a couple years. For a while, Antje was just another midwestern girl who liked using Instagram to promote her stunning looks, but one day things just blew up for her, prompting her to move to L.A. and kickstart a modeling and acting career.

Antje has been called "the next Kate Upton" by, well, just about everybody. (Google her name and almost every search will come back with a Kate Upton comparison.) One quick glance at her pictures and it's easy to see why. Antje is hoping to parlay her popularity on social media into an acting career, and there's little question that the camera would continue to love her in any other medium. We spoke to Antje about her crazy rise to Instagram goddess, her favorite pages, who she looks up to and what's next for her.

I was reading up on you a little bit. You grew up in Wisconsin then you went to school in I think Minnesota, right?

Yes, I grew up in Wisconsin and lived there 18 years and then I moved. Went to college in Minnesota, went to the University of Minnesota, and then I went 3 years and decided that wasn't for me and then moved out to L. A.

So now how is L. A. Life been compared to Wisconsin and Minnesota?

I mean obviously it's very, very different. In every aspect. But I mean I like it a lot more, I feel like you can be more of who you are and you're not going to get judged. You know doing social media back in Minnesota and Wisconsin it was... people didn't understand and it was really hard for them to wrap their minds around. Cause you know a lot of people out there are just normal, you know.

Like sort of conservative views?

Yeah, more conservative and they have their minds wrapped around you know, different things and doing their job, get married, have kids and you know for some people that's what they want. But for me I just I never really... I don't know, I felt like I wanted to do something, something else. And so I know it wasn't fair to me so I just I decided to pack up my car one day and packed up everything I needed and then I drove 35 hours down here by myself and it was a big gamble cause I didn't know anybody.

How did you get your start in L. A. Did you just kind of wing it and just start going to like agencies and stuff?

No. Well as soon as I hit 100k I moved out here. 100k on social media and my Instagram and I thought, "Hey maybe there's something here for me." So I'm gonna give it a shot. I moved out here and the first month was extremely hard. I really wasn't doing much, I had saved all my money from the summer of bartending and of course I was getting a few things coming in from my social media, but for the most part it was pretty scary. So I just kind of went to a Halloween party I got invited to by myself and the next morning I woke up and I feel like my life hasn't been the same since.

When did you join Instagram and when did you start realizing you were developing this following?

I made my Instagram back in my senior year of high school, back in 2012. It was just my personal Instagram. I didn't even think that posting would make me famous on social media. And then as soon as I got my first start back in October 2014, I think it was Big 10 10's, they have like 50,000 followers. They posted a picture of me, then Barstool Sports reposted it from them. And then that's when I started getting followers. It was just a selfie that I snapped to my boyfriend at the time and he screenshot it and sent it to Instagram as a joke without me knowing and then people really liked it and started following me. Then I just kept on giving them what they wanted and started getting more into modeling, taking my own photos and putting those up and people really liked that and then Awesome Antje became my name.

Was that a surprising path for you? Was modeling something were already going to pursue?

It's something I've always wanted to pursue, I was a promotional model before any of this happened and it's already something I wanted to do. I had been in a calendar shoot once. Modeling found me, I was a dancer for 18 years and then as soon as I lost my passion for that in college I had someone contact me and ask me if I wanted to be in a calendar shoot cause they needed an extra girl last minute and I said sure, why not? It was always something I wanted to do, but I didn't really pursue it until I started blowing up on Instagram. And then I was like, well, this is a good way for people to see my work.

And is that your full time pursuit right now?

Modeling, I would say modeling and social media. Social media is huge these days. And then acting, I'm actually more into acting now and that's what I want to do.

Now you have so many fans on Instagram, do you interact with a lot of them? I mean, do they get weird, or are they mostly cool?

I guess I interact sometimes but for the most part it takes up my whole day if I interact with every single person you know. I don't have enough time to really do that. So every once in a while, I guess. If someone really points something out I guess I usually comment back. Twitter is where I like to interact with my followers the most, that's where I feel like it's easier for me to do that. But on Instagram and Snapchat I used to have it where people could chat me too, but it just became too much and I couldn't see my sudden snaps. It's hard when you want them to be able to interact with you but then it takes away from you being able to interact with your actual friends.

And so is Twitter your favorite platform?

No, it's my favorite for interacting with people. But I love Instagram, Instagram's my baby. I like Snapchat as well.

I loved it cause I was always a big fan of her and I used to always tell people, "Oh, I want to be like Kate Upton." You know, gorgeous, voluptuous, curvy all American model, who does Sports illustrated. But I want to do something more than have that title, I want to I want to get into something that has more longevity and where I can show my personality a little more, so of course I want to continue to do modeling, would love to do Sports Illustrated, but other than that I want to get more into acting, get in a comedy series like Friends or How I Met Your Mother. Something like that would be ideal.

Is that a passion of yours, comedy?

Yeah, I like comedy, that's why I do Vine and got more into doing short clips for Facebook, comedy clips. It was a lot of fun. So then I started doing more stuff like that and I've been taking classes and I've always been... the one thing about me is, I've always just liked to entertain people no matter what I do. When I was a dancer, I wasn't the best on the team but yet I was captain; I was front and center all the time because I could give you a performance. I could sell myself to you.

And what do you do when you're not pursuing your work, what do you do to relax?

I like to travel. I like to get away sometimes, because then no one can really pester you. That's really nice. If I could choose it would be to go home and go to the lake I grew up on and just hang out. I like to work out. I also like going to movies, I go to a movie like once or twice a week. Maybe once a week cause I usually have seen all the movies in the theater.

If there's one actor or actress that you could work with along side, who would it be?

That's hard. I really like Jennifer Aniston I think it would be fun to work next to her. I'm kind of going for something like Sophia Vergara is about. She's gorgeous but she's also funny. But I mean, there's so many amazing actresses and actors I'd love to meet. Love Rachel McAdams too, but someone that I'd love to work aside would be Jennifer.

If you could be the next Sophia Vergara now that would be pretty cool.

Yeah, I love that girl.

Thank you for your time, enjoy your holiday.

Thank you so much.

You can follow Antje on Facebook HERE, Twitter HERE and Instagram HERE. You won't regret it.